17) Andrew Johnson - Sir Veto

For no other president, to this point, has the consensus opinion changed so drastically. As recently as the 1960s Andrew Johnson was seen as the man who attempted to shepherd through Lincoln’s magnanimous policy toward reconstructing the South; a defender of the Constitution and its system of checks and balances against the vindictive Radical Republicans led by Thaddeus Stevens. Johnson is now more likely to be viewed as a humorless racist with no regard for the atrocities being committed in the Southern states.  As is often the case, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Johnson grew up fatherless and poor, born in a shack in North Carolina. He had no formal schooling and taught himself to read. When he reached adulthood he moved to Tennessee and served as the town tailor. He continued to learn and joined debating societies where he impressed locals, who would ultimately elect him to various offices including mayor, the state legislature, four terms in the House of Representatives, governor of Tennessee, and ultimately to the United States Senate. He was known as a good speaker in Congress and he instituted Tennessee’s first public school system as governor.

After Lincoln’s election Johnson made himself into a national figure. Johnson was the lone Southern voice in Congress to speak out against secession and even returned to Tennessee to attempt to keep his state in the Union. This was a courageous and lonely act which put him and his family in physical danger. They were forced to flee to Kentucky when Tennessee joined the Confederacy. When the Union Army was able to take control of parts of Tennessee, Johnson was installed by Lincoln as wartime governor.

Andrew Johnson

When Lincoln ran for his second term, Johnson was nominated for Vice President in place of Hannibal Hamlin. Johnson was seen as an ideal personification of the bridging of the gap between North and South, Republican and Democrat. After winning his second term, Lincoln gave the famous speech in which he appealed to the country to heal “with malice toward none, with charity for all…” However, shortly before that celebrated address Johnson was sworn in in the Senate chamber where he was an embarrassing spectacle. Though not otherwise known as a drunk, he showed up in a bad way. He rambled for nearly fifteen minutes before Hamlin interrupted to administer the oath of office. Senator Zachariah Chandler, who witnessed the event, wrote to his wife, “[Johnson] disgraced himself & the Senate by making a drunken foolish speech.”

Six weeks later, Lincoln lay dead and Johnson was sworn in as the 17^th president. Trouble began early as Johnson allowed Southern states to send many high ranking Confederates to Congress. The Radicals fought back by refusing to recognize any Senators from the former Confederate States. Returning to the changing opinion of Johnson’s presidency, where historians once saw a man who was carrying out Lincoln’s “malice toward none,” many now see a man choosing to ignore atrocities, often murders, being committed routinely against blacks, Republicans, and US soldiers in the southern states.

A major fear of the Radical lawmakers was the potential political power of a fully reinstated south. The 13^th amendment counterintuitively increased the South’s power as their many black residents were now counted instead of being counted as 3/5s of a person. The fear, and reality, was that blacks would be kept from having any place in society or voice at the ballot box while the number of southern representatives in the House would increase.

The Radicals in Congress sparred with Johnson throughout his term. Johnson went around the country giving inflammatory speeches against the Radicals while Congress passed laws over Johnson’s veto. The Radicals in Congress toyed with the idea of impeachment. One of these laws that Congress passed to limit Johnson’s power was the Tenure of Office Act, whereby the president needed the Senate’s blessing to remove many appointed officials. Though the law’s constitutionality was dubious, these were tense times. When Johnson removed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and replaced him with General Lorenzo Thomas, Congress found their impeachable offence. On February 24, 1868, roughly three years in to Johnson’s presidency, Congress voted 126-47 in favor of impeachment.

The demographics of the Senate did not bode well for Johnson. Needing a 2/3 vote for conviction, the Senate was comprised of nine Democrats and 45 Republicans, three of the Republicans were “Johnson Republicans.” The defense seemingly needed to swing seven votes. The trial would go on for over two months in the spring of 1868. It was a hot ticket and those who were able to get one eagerly attended.

As the trial wore on and the vote neared, it became clear that it was going to be close and would likely come down to the Republican from Kansas, Edmund Ross. When Ross stood to say “not guilty” in front of a silent room it was all but over. Although derided by Republicans at the time, history began to view Ross’s vote as courageous. Future President John F. Kennedy included Ross as one of eight Senators featured in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Profiles in Courage. However, strong circumstantial evidence suggests Ross along with John Henderson (Missouri), Joseph Fowler (Tennessee), and Peter Van Winkle (West Virginia) was bribed. There also appears to have been six more no votes bought if needed. The bribery was likely executed by the so-called Astor House Group with help from Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Edmund Cooper. William Seward and Johnson likely had knowledge of the general scheme if not the particulars of it.

Senator Edmund Ross

Despite his victory over the Radicals and escape of complete political disgrace, there was no chance Johnson would be reelected. The Democrats did not even nominate him for the election of 1868 in which Ulysses Grant soundly defeated Democratic nominee Horatio Seymour. After the election Johnson returned to Tennessee with a bitter taste in his mouth. He sought political redemption in the form of a Senate seat running in 1869 and 1872 before winning a seat in 1875. He died of a stroke during a recess four months in to his term.

I would like to end this post with the same paragraph that David Stewart ended his book with. I find the quote especially poignant now, at a time when Americans are so down on our elected officials.

Americans, perhaps all people, expect historical crises to be met by heroes – Washingtons, Franklins, Lincolns, and Roosevelts. A nation learns a great deal more about itself and its system of government when a crisis has to be met by people of lesser talents. In the impeachment crises of 1868, none of the country’s leaders were great, a few were good, all were angry, and far too many were despicable. Still, we survived.